Jerry Dampier
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While sitting in a park, a small group of boys, all teenagers and all members of the same gang, witness an accident involving what appears to be an old man. He is not really an old man, however, but an alien from outer space. Like a number of other witnesses, the boys run to where the accident occurred; however, to their and everyone else’s amazement the old man is nowhere to be found. It’s as though he disappeared. After leaving, the boys walk over to their clubhouse. In the middle of their meeting they hear a loud crash coming from the bedroom. While searching the room, they discover the alien taking shelter. Realizing that he is on the edge of death, the boys discuss the matter and agree to call the police. However, after overhearing their discussion, the alien pleads with them not to do that. After inquiring as to how they can help, the alien instructs the boys on just what to do. Although astonished at his bazaar instructions on how to help heal him, the boys agree and do as he asked; after the 24th hour of administering aid and to the boys’ astonishment, the alien is restored to health. In return for their help, he agrees to be a sort of teacher and mentor to the teenagers for a period of one year. The alien is called the Pedagogy. With the Pedagogy by their side, these boys will face a series of challenges that will test to and call forth their strength of character and quality of mind.
Jerry Dampier attended the University of San Francisco College of Professional Studies, where he received a Master’s Degree in Health Services. However, long before and after graduate school, he spent and spends his time in the study of philosophy; especially in the area of ancient Greek philosophy. As a philosophical essayist and a fiction writer, his studies afford him the unique opportunity of blending his understanding of philosophical ideas with the themes and plot of the fictional stories he writes. Born in Akron, Ohio, he currently lives in San Francisco. Jerry Dampier is the Founder and President of Books By Dampier, Inc. (BBD).
What the Boys from Beal Alley Boulevard saw when the Pedagogy stood before them was a thin, dignified-looking elderly man of average height, with a grayish complexion. His bald head had such a high gloss to it that if you stood before it, you could almost see a reflection of yourself beaming off it. The Pedagogy is not what you would call handsome; as a matter of fact, he’s mildly unattractive; but when he smiles his eyes brighten and his face becomes quite pleasing. When he looks at people he often does so with intensity and as though he were reading their faces as well as hearing their thoughts.
What the Boys from Beal Alley Boulevard could not have known is that the Pedagogy is a person of extraordinary physical and intellectual ability and virtuosity. With regard to his biological and recuperative abilities, he possesses powers above that of ordinary people in that when injured, he heals far more rapidly and without the aid of conventional medicine. In addition, he is much stronger than the average earth person. And his hearing and eyesight appear to be as keen as those of many animals. It is said that the average person on earth uses about ten percent out of a hundred percent of his or her intellectual capacity—and those who use their minds thoroughly and continuously throughout their lives may possibly use upwards of twenty percent. The Pedagogy, however, uses upwards of eighty percent of his intellectual capacity. This is an unusually high degree, even for beings among his species. The Pedagogy possesses other gifts as well. For example, his respiratory system is so powerful that his lungs are capable of inhaling and exhaling exceedingly large volumes of air. And when he exhales, the force of the current is so intense that it is capable of blowing aside large pieces of furniture and objects as heavy as automobiles.
The Pedagogy travels in a space vehicle so small and so unlike what people would recognize as a spaceship that it is certain to go unnoticed by anyone who sees it. He is a teacher and an ambassador of the universe. A unique species to our world, the Pedagogy is a planet traveler; a very strange and amazing being from a very distant place in the furthest regions of outer space.
* * *
The next day was Sunday. The young teenagers calling themselves the Boys from Beal Alley Boulevard did as they had promised and met the Pedagogy at Beal Alley Mansion in the early afternoon. After the boys entered the house, they discovered the Pedagogy sitting at the table, awaiting their arrival. Number K was the first to speak.
“Oh! Hello, Pedagogy,” said he. “The gang and I were discussing you on the way over here. We thought you might be lying down, and we didn’t know whether or not we ought to bother you.”
“Bother me? Oh no, my boy; not at all. I heard you coming this way fifteen minutes ago, which caused me to get out of bed so that I could greet you.”
“You heard us coming fifteen minutes ago,” mockingly replied Teddy, disbelieving what he had just heard. “Fifteen minutes ago we were five blocks away; now how in the world could you have heard us coming?”
“It’s like I said,” said Randy. “Pretty spooky, pretty spooky.”
“I should say I have learned the patterns and sounds of your footsteps as a group,” replied the Pedagogy. “This allows me to estimate your distance and your time of arrival.
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t explain much of—”
“Boys,” said the Pedagogy, interrupting Teddy in the middle of his sentence, “I am anxio
